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When Charlie Partridge was at Pitt 10 years ago, Pitt had pretty clearly defined roles at defensive tackle.
There was a bigger nose tackle and a smaller three-technique defensive tackle. Rashaad Duncan and Mick Williams, for instance. Or, in later years, Tyrone Ezell and Aaron Donald. Even last season, Pitt had Tyrique Jarrett lined up next to Shakir Soto, who was a converted defensive end.
This year’s group of tackles has size - Keyshon Camp and Kam Carter are pushing 300 pounds - but overall, the players are quicker and more athletic, and Partridge, who was hired to be Pitt’s defensive line coach this offseason, says that’s the way things are trending.
“I think, overall, defensive speed is so critical now as offenses have expanded to use the whole field,” he said Tuesday. “I mean, there are some teams you’re playing - it’s basketball. It really is. It’s hard to even call it what we knew as football 15 years ago. They’re getting it out in space and saying, ‘My guy’s going to beat your guy.’ And when you do that, you’re going to have to have team speed. There may be certain weeks we put guys in those positions, but all of them have to be able to run.”
And as that evolution continues, what happens to those larger players who used to line up over the center?
“Big guys go to guard,” Partridge said with a smile that didn’t necessarily imply sarcasm.
The good and the bad
Pitt’s players and coaches don’t have to look far for evidence of the struggles in pass defense last season. The Panthers were almost the worst team in the nation, by the numbers, against the pass, and the anecdotal evidence - stories of every quarterback and receiver playing pitch-and-catch against Pitt’s corners at will are going to live on in infamy for years - is even worse.
So if Pat Narduzzi and his staff wanted to motivate the defensive backs this offseason, they didn’t have to look far to find material. But senior cornerback Avonte Maddox says the coaches didn’t take that approach.
In fact, they went the other way.
“They don’t throw it at us; they actually encourage us to watch the good plays, you know? Nobody wants to sit and watch bad plays all day. Eventually you have to go through them to learn ways to stop it, but we know: we just have to win on the 50/50 balls. So at practice every day we do our deep-ball drill and we’re learning and learning every day.”
Another shot
Maddox definitely has a cornerback’s mentality when it comes to taking on challenges. In 2016, Clemson standout receiver Mike Williams unloaded on Pitt, catching 15 passes for 202 yards - both career highs - and a touchdown in the Panthers win over the Tigers.
Maddox was tasked with watching Williams quite a bit that day, but far from the traumatic experience those numbers might imply, the senior corner from Detroit would actually like another shot at the No. 7 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft again.
“If he could come back another year, I definitely would like to see him again,” Maddox said Tuesday. “I’m always looking forward to the good competition. It’s a way to get better.”
Height isn’t everything
Fairly or unfairly, Maddox is often defined by his height. He is listed in Pitt’s media guide at 5’9”, which can be a difficult position against a player like Williams, who stands 6’4”.
Generally speaking, Pitt’s coaching staff has recruited to make the cornerback position bigger, but cornerbacks coach Renaldo Hill thinks that coaches have to be open to playmakers at that spot while also being cognizant of the challenges the defensive backs face on each season’s schedule.
“I think you go out and you recruit and you may have the measureables, but there are always going to be some guys who are just elite athletes,” Hill said Tuesday. “You’re going to find a 5’9” or 5’8” guy who is just unbelievable, and it would be hard to pass up on a guy like that.
“But we do understand that we do in play in the ACC where there are bigger receivers, bigger and taller receivers, and sometimes you need guys to match up with them. But at the same time, we have to use our abilities and may be those guys not as big but they may be quick enough to cut those guys off.
“I talk to them more about their strengths than having a lack of height. I’m not naïve to it; I understand that we have to work on those things, but we’re going to embrace what we do well first.”
Newcomers
Pitt’s two additions to the cornerback position this offseason, freshmen Jason Pinnock and Damarri Mathis, add some size to the position. Pinnock, in particular, is one of the bigger corners on the team. So far, Hill likes what he has seen from the two newcomers.
“They’re doing pretty good,” Hill said. “I’ve been impressed with those guys since they’ve been here. They’ve been focused, they spend a lot of time in the meeting room, just doing everything that I ask. Especially coming in young, a lot of times, you don’t know what you have until they get here. But I’ve been excited for them since Day One.”
With just four returning upperclassmen at cornerback - Maddox, redshirt junior Phillipie Motley, redshirt sophomore Dane Jackson and redshirt freshman Therran Coleman - it wouldn’t take much for Pinnock and/or Mathis to get thrust into action, and Hill has been stressing that point to the young players as often as he can.
“Everyone’s in the mix. I tell those guys that every day. You just never know in this game. In the years I’ve played, you see some freaky things happen, and that’s what I try to prepare those guys for…to let them understand that they’re only a play away. That’s the way we’re going to continue to prepare. I address it to them every day.”
From mute to finger-wagger
Redshirt junior Elijah Zeise moved to linebacker from wide receiver last spring, and while linebackers coach Rob Harley thinks the North Allegheny product has taken well to the position - and not just in learning assignments and executing on the field.
“I always tell him, he started out as the mute in our room, and now he cracks jokes on people in there and it’s good,” Harley said Tuesday. “We have a good relationship in that room and he’s a big reason why. Which you wouldn’t have guessed that on Day One.”
Zeise’s personality is not a loud one. He didn’t get too involved in the publicity end of the recruiting process and is generally a quiet person. And while that’s still the case - his personality hasn’t changed and Harley said last week Zeise is a “serious, serious dude” - he seems to have come out of his shell a bit on the field.
“On the field, he’s a whole different guy,” Harley said. “He makes plays, he goes congratulates people when they make plays, he gets fired up when he makes a play. He had a PBU the other day and he’s out there wagging the finger. But very serious in the meeting room. He talks more now this year than he’s ever talked, I don’t know, maybe since he’s been at Pitt. Our room is good; I think our room is bringing it out of him a little bit, not because it’s the linebacker room, but just the chemistry we’ve got in that room, it’s bringing some guys to the surface and he’s one of them, which is nice to see."
